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Topic: Things that you just should NOT laugh at. (Read 575286 times)

At my university, our professors take graduate seminars quite seriously. You're expected to behave professionally at all times, it is absolutely unthinkable to attend seminar without being prepared for it, and dressing casually (jeans, hoodies, or sneakers) is not forbidden but it is frowned upon. There is one professor in the department who will allow a *small* amount of off-topic joking or comments in seminar, but in general it is not acceptable.

So, I'm in a seminar, 'Late Medieval and Renaissance Political Theory'. We're discussing the idea of coercive force, and its application in political thought - who uses it, why, and under what rules or authority. We're specifically discussing warfare. A student, M, pipes up to add his contribution to the discussion. EB is a girl sitting next to him, who is a close friend of mine. M is a mutual friend of both of us. EB and I are both prone to bouts of the Inappropriate Giggles.

M: Well, after a battle, the distribution of booty was -"EB: "HA" *snort*Class: Horrified silence.EB, panicking: "Oh, I'm so sorry... it's just, he said booty... it was really funny, I'm so sorry, that was inappropriate, please go on."Me: *struggling to contain my laughter at poor EB*M, deliberately: "As I was saying, the booty was crucial to authority figures -"EB: *snortgigglechokecough* Makes the fatal mistake of making eye contact with me. Me: *collapses into fit of Inappropriate Giggles*EB: *collapses into fit of Inappropriate Giggles*Professor: *not amused*

That reminds me of when my fiance's best friend and his family visited us for dinner. His four year old daughter is the world's biggest ham, so naturally she made sure that she was the center of attention the whole night. And she had also recently discovered the word booty.

Yeah, you see where this is going. We spent the whole night with her shouting "BOOTY!" and us rewarding her with gales of laughter. I felt bad for encouraging her but it couldn't be helped.

Oh man, now you've done it. You've reminded me of one of my most embarrassing moments in grad school. A friend and I were TAing a summer course. The usual professor was out ill, so he had a senior grad student/postdoc(? don't remember now) fill in for him. Friend and I had TAed the same course for the main professor before, so we knew the material well.

Well, fill-in teacher was a nice guy, but a hopeless teacher. By 3 weeks in, he was 2 weeks behind. He gave weekly quizzes that consisted of a photocopy out of a 19-century book that the students were supposed to identify the parts of. They all looked like grey blobs. I couldn't have done it. He was also an devotee of an unusual form of medicine that he'd happily spend lecture time talking about. It had nothing to do with the class topic. He also once showed his Alaskan vacation photos. I mean, it was baaaaad.

Friend and I are taking a ton of the heat, as we're running the labs, so the students could whine at us easily. Fill-in didn't see any problems. We're grad students, so don't quite know what to do at this point.

End result, we were stressed and on-edge. Towards the end of a particularly wacky lecture, which included some discussion of alternative medicine (again, not even remotely related to the topic), and the fill-in misdefining an important term that the students needed that week in lab. Friend and I knew that we'd take the brunt of the confusion resulting.

All of that is background, leading up to a mixed metaphor in lecture. Apparently, he confused "whole different ball of wax" and "whole different kettle of fish," saying, pompously, to the class, "That's a whole different ball of fish." Friend and I LOST IT. We're the two TAs for a class of about 100, giggling hilariously towards the front of the lecture hall.

The good bit is that that apparently served as a wake-up call to fill-in, cause he straightened up, stuck to the material, and started giving rational quizzes.

Once I was at a church brunch where the grape juice tasted a bit off, like it was expired or something. We're all sitting at these long rows of tables and my dad says "Hm, this juice needs some help." I blurted out that God would help it, since "juice is God's chosen beverage." I then proceeded to laugh my behind off while everyone stared at me. To this day if someone asks me if I want juice I nod sagely and mention God's chosen beverage.

(For the record, I don't think I made that up. I'm pretty sure I heard it on a Comedy Central special or something.)

Once I was at a church brunch where the grape juice tasted a bit off, like it was expired or something. We're all sitting at these long rows of tables and my dad says "Hm, this juice needs some help." I blurted out that God would help it, since "juice is God's chosen beverage." I then proceeded to laugh my behind off while everyone stared at me. To this day if someone asks me if I want juice I nod sagely and mention God's chosen beverage.

(For the record, I don't think I made that up. I'm pretty sure I heard it on a Comedy Central special or something.)

Well, Jesus turned water into wine, which is simply old grape juice. Perhaps you were all present at a miracle in the works.

Logged

“A real desire to believe all the good you can of others and to make others as comfortable as you can will solve most of the problems.” CS Lewis

Someone I know has had an interesting business trip so far, and she's only just arrived at her destination. She had an inkling that it might be an interesting flight when a couple of U.S. Marshals came on board with a prisoner in handcuffs. It became a very interesting flight, but the prisoner wasn't it. Sometime during the flight a guy went into the restroom, stripped down until he was only wearing his socks. (Don't want to touch those nasty restroom floors, doncha know. ). He then proceeded to sashay up and down the aisle of the plane shaking his junk.

I'm not sure who finally bagged him and got him under control. It wasn't the Marshals. (They were probably laughing themselves silly that "The Streak" wasn't their problem.) When the plane landed, The Streak was escorted off the plane under arrest.

Last week, the DDs and I were sitting in the little garden outside of Children's Hospital, waiting for YS (with Dad) to finish his appointment. We decided time was probably getting close, so we packed up to go in, use the restroom, etc. OD had just put her laptop in its sleeve when Plop! a bird made a deposit on it. OD was outraged, MD and I laughed. I pointed out to MD that she wouldn't be laughing if it happened to her.

I carefully parked my car so it wasn't under any overhead lines or poles, so imagine my surprise when I found a big splat of bird poop on my windshield. I'm picturing a bird hovering like a helicopter over my car, laughing while he defecates, "So you think you're safe because you parked in the open! Ha ha!"

Logged

"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are."

When I was a child all the parishioners used to stand outside the church entry talking after services. There was one particular lady who was known to be the church's main gossip and general trouble maker. SHE, of course, was perfect and everyone else was a woeful sinner.

One Sunday she was just starting to rail about the pastor's sermon being obviously meant for a certain church member who was not in attendance that day and how it was too bad the person the sermon was clearly directed toward wasn't even there to hear it.

Suddenly a bird flew over and made a huge plop right on her head. As she looked up to see the culprit, another bird flew over and landed one right on her FACE, pretty much on her mouth!

I was standing there with my sister and several other kids and we all broke into giggling fits. The lady woman was NOT amused and really lambasted all our parents for having raised such unbelievably rude horrible children. We were.

Interestingly, not ONE of our parents ever said a word to us about it. As adults they were trying very hard not to react the same way we had and I think they were just glad that we took her attention off them.

Programs at the library this week have been well attended and have received good evaluations.

Not laughing at either whiterose or her post at all. No, it's the fact that for some reason I keep misreading it as Pogroms at the library this week have been well attended and have received good evaluations, and having split-second moments of wondering what the heck kind of library they're running there...

Programs at the library this week have been well attended and have received good evaluations.

Not laughing at either whiterose or her post at all. No, it's the fact that for some reason I keep misreading it as Pogroms at the library this week have been well attended and have received good evaluations, and having split-second moments of wondering what the heck kind of library they're running there...

Hahaha! Now you've got my brain reading what it isn't supposed to be reading....on purpose!